Every time you start to think some team has an awesome bullpen in March, repeat those lines ahead. The bullpen is way too inconsistent because of their sample sizes to ever consider one a strength entering the season. Unless Mariano Rivera is your closer, your bullpen has issues. The Cubs bullpen has already blown 2 games and it was considered one of the strengths of the team. One more time.

There is no such thing as an awesome bullpen entering the season.

Does. Not. Exist.

Take the most dominating back end of a bullpen I have ever seen. The 1990 Reds turned games into 6 inning ballgames. If you never got a chance to watch that Reds team play, you really missed out. The end of those games were lights out. You didn’t have a chance.

Entering the 1991 season everybody expected the Reds to have another ridiculously good bullpen. Considering the year before the three combined to post nearly a 190 ERA+, Reds fans and baseball fans all over were thinking it was going to be another 6 inning game vs the Reds. Nope. The three combined for roughly a 120 ERA+ the following season. Still very good, but the idea of that shutdown 7th, 8th and 9th inning releivers was put to rest.

The great bullpen entering the season is a myth. It’s something teams chase like addicts chase the best high of their lives. The end result for both is that they wasted a lot of money on something that doesn’t exist.